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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>LKML: Sven Luther: Re: non-free firmware in kernel modules, aggregation and unclear copyright notice.</title><link href="/css/message.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /><link href="/css/wrap.css" rel="alternate stylesheet" type="text/css" title="wrap" /><link href="/css/nowrap.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" title="nowrap" /><link href="/favicon.ico" rel="shortcut icon" /><script src="/js/simple-calendar.js" type="text/javascript"></script><script src="/js/styleswitcher.js" type="text/javascript"></script><link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="lkml.org : last 100 messages" href="/rss.php" /><link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="lkml.org : last messages by Sven Luther" href="/groupie.php?aid=19270" /><script> var _paq = window._paq = window._paq || []; /* tracker methods like "setCustomDimension" should be called before "trackPageView" */ _paq.push(["setDoNotTrack", true]); _paq.push(["disableCookies"]); _paq.push(['trackPageView']); _paq.push(['enableLinkTracking']); (function() { var u="//m.lkml.org/"; _paq.push(['setTrackerUrl', u+'matomo.php']); _paq.push(['setSiteId', '1']); var d=document, g=d.createElement('script'), s=d.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; g.async=true; g.src=u+'matomo.js'; s.parentNode.insertBefore(g,s); })(); </script></head><body onload="es.jasper.simpleCalendar.init();" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/BlogPosting"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td width="180" align="center"><a href="/"><img style="border:0;width:135px;height:32px" src="/images/toprowlk.gif" alt="lkml.org" /></a></td><td width="32">聽</td><td class="nb"><div><a class="nb" href="/lkml"> [lkml]</a> 聽 <a class="nb" href="/lkml/2005"> [2005]</a> 聽 <a class="nb" href="/lkml/2005/4"> [Apr]</a> 聽 <a class="nb" href="/lkml/2005/4/5"> [5]</a> 聽 <a class="nb" href="/lkml/last100"> [last100]</a> 聽 <a href="/rss.php"><img src="/images/rss-or.gif" border="0" alt="RSS Feed" /></a></div><div>Views: <a href="#" class="nowrap" onclick="setActiveStyleSheet('wrap');return false;">[wrap]</a><a href="#" class="wrap" onclick="setActiveStyleSheet('nowrap');return false;">[no wrap]</a> 聽 <a class="nb" href="/lkml/mheaders/2005/4/5/155" onclick="this.href='/lkml/headers'+'/2005/4/5/155';">[headers]</a>聽 <a href="/lkml/bounce/2005/4/5/155">[forward]</a>聽 </div></td><td width="32">聽</td></tr><tr><td valign="top"><div class="es-jasper-simpleCalendar" baseurl="/lkml/"></div><div class="threadlist">Messages in this thread</div><ul class="threadlist"><li class="root"><a href="/lkml/2005/4/5/133">First message in thread</a></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/4/5/133">Humberto Massa</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/4/5/137">Jeff Garzik</a><ul><li class="origin"><a href="/lkml/2005/4/5/238">Sven Luther</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/4/5/238">Horst von Brand</a></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/4/5/152">Sven Luther</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/4/5/170">Humberto Massa</a></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/4/7/238">Adrian Bunk</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/4/7/240">Sven Luther</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/4/7/291">Adrian Bunk</a></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></td><td width="32" rowspan="2" class="c" valign="top"><img src="/images/icornerl.gif" width="32" height="32" alt="/" /></td><td class="c" rowspan="2" valign="top" style="padding-top: 1em"><table><tr><td><table><tr><td class="lp">Date</td><td class="rp" itemprop="datePublished">Tue, 5 Apr 2005 16:02:21 +0200</td></tr><tr><td class="lp">Subject</td><td class="rp" itemprop="name">Re: non-free firmware in kernel modules, aggregation and unclear copyright notice.</td></tr><tr><td class="lp">From</td><td class="rp" itemprop="author">Sven Luther <></td></tr></table></td><td></td></tr></table><pre itemprop="articleBody">On Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 08:16:48AM -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote:<br />> Humberto Massa wrote:<br />> >But, the question made here was a subtler one and you are all biting <br />> >around the bush: there *are* some misrepresentations of licenses to the <br />> >firmware blobs in the kernel (-- ok, *if* you consider that hex dumps <br />> >are not source code). What Sven asked was: "Hey, can I state explicitly <br />> >the distribution state in the source files, by means of adding some <br />> >comments?".<br />> <br />> >I think even a clarification "this firmware hexdump is considered to be <br />> >the source code, and it's GPL'd" would do, but I must put my asbestos <br />> >suit everytime I say it. :-)<br />> <br />> We do not add comments to the kernel source code which simply state the <br />> obvious.<br /><br />The only thing here is that it has to be obvious not only to you, but to the<br />judge too :)<br /><br />In this case, it is not comments, but proper copyright attribution, which was<br />added in the tg3.c case since the first checkin :<br /><br />/*<br /> * tg3.c: Broadcom Tigon3 ethernet driver.<br /> *<br /> * Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 David S. Miller (davem@redhat.com)<br /> * Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003 Jeff Garzik (jgarzik@pobox.com)<br /> * Copyright (C) 2004 Sun Microsystems Inc.<br /> *<br /> * Firmware is:<br /> * Copyright (C) 2000-2003 Broadcom Corporation.<br /> */<br /><br />The firmware part was not present in the original checkin you did in 2002.<br />Adding something about the licencing status of it would be enough.<br /><br />Or even adding some comment in the toplevel COPYING file saying that firmware<br />blobs come under their own licence or something such, and then listing all the<br />firmware blobs and their licencing condition in a separate toplevel file would<br />be enough.<br /><br />Friendly,<br /><br />Sven Luther<br /><br />-<br />To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in<br />the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org<br />More majordomo info at <a href="http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html">http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html</a><br />Please read the FAQ at <a href="http://www.tux.org/lkml/">http://www.tux.org/lkml/</a><br /><br /></pre></td><td width="32" rowspan="2" class="c" valign="top"><img src="/images/icornerr.gif" width="32" height="32" alt="\" /></td></tr><tr><td align="right" valign="bottom"> 聽 </td></tr><tr><td align="right" valign="bottom">聽</td><td class="c" valign="bottom" style="padding-bottom: 0px"><img src="/images/bcornerl.gif" width="32" height="32" alt="\" /></td><td class="c">聽</td><td class="c" valign="bottom" style="padding-bottom: 0px"><img src="/images/bcornerr.gif" width="32" height="32" alt="/" /></td></tr><tr><td align="right" valign="top" colspan="2"> 聽 </td><td class="lm">Last update: 2005-04-06 13:31 聽聽 [from the cache]<br />漏2003-2020 <a href="http://blog.jasper.es/"><span itemprop="editor">Jasper Spaans</span></a>|hosted at <a href="https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=9a8e99d24cf9">Digital Ocean</a> and my Meterkast|<a href="http://blog.jasper.es/categories.html#lkml-ref">Read the blog</a></td><td>聽</td></tr></table><script language="javascript" src="/js/styleswitcher.js" type="text/javascript"></script></body></html>